latest news from Israel in english

The Israeli website «Mako» reported on 22 February that due to the increasing incidence of smuggling of drugs and cigarettes from Uman law enforcement agencies of Ukraine and Israel began a joint investigation. On the investigation of the involvement of Israelis to a criminal network, acting in Uman said the journalist of the radio station Galei Tzahal adas Staff.

At the end of last week, the Israeli media reported that according to the suspicions of the police in Uman under the guise of religious pilgrims infiltrated the Israeli criminal clans. They are engaged in extortion and RAID, as well as organized smuggling of drugs and cigarettes in Europe and Israel. The publication says that last year customs officers of the airport Ben-Gurion prevented hundreds of cases of smuggling of tobacco products from Uman.

The IRS noted a sharp increase in the activity of smugglers during the holidays, when returning from Uman thousands of pilgrims.

The website «Mako» wrote that members of criminal clans often go to Uman as pilgrims or they are hired as couriers of representatives of religious communities, which pay for the road.

The lawyer of several Israeli pilgrims detained at the airport with contraband tobacco products, in a media interview, said that criminal clans forced the pilgrims by force and threats to take when returning to Israel contraband cargo.